Healthy Traditional Chocolate Beetroot Cake Recipe

I am not into baking, my sister, “Aunty Lis” usually took that honour up to serve very delicious and beautiful cakes. But seeing that my kids birthdays have arrived and we now live on the North Shore of Auckland, a mere 2600km from her, I am now responsible for serving this very coveted dessert and I plan on doing it well.

The Origins of the Birthday Cake

The ancient Egyptians, Romans and Greeks made special birthday cakes. The Greeks made moon-shaped cakes and offered them to Artemis, the goddess of the moon. The cakes were decorated with lit candles to make it look like a big, shiny moon.

Then the Germans brought in Kinderfeste (translates to “child party”), which was an eighteenth century tradition where a cake was baked for a child, used with the most expensive ingredients, and the amount of candles placed on the cake was the child’s age plus one so that the child would look forward to another full year of life.

I do enjoy sweets and desserts so tend not to make them and have them occasionally. But this week calls for baking and trialling… and so like Marie Antoinette I will have my cake and eat it too!

Ditch the Guilt Over Eating Real Cake with Real Sugar and Fat in it

As much as I love health food, I will not settle for these crappy substituted recipes that are intended to be superior or more healthy because they’re egg-free, dairy-free, fat-free, sugar-free… blah, blah, blah. There is nothing wrong with occasionally eating a delicious cake made with good ingredients and lots of love, its good for you and your soul so enjoy it and ditch the guilt!

About this Delicious Cake

This is a really decadent cake, it has beetroot in it to keep it moist, and occasionally you will bite into a chunk of delicious dark chocolate, and it is quite rich so you don’t need a huge piece, and it is pretty easy and simple to make. There is nothing more satisfying than watching people hoe into this cake when they hate eating vegetables, let alone beetroot.

Benefits of Beetroot

Beetroot is a root vegetable and good for your spleen (digestive energy).

When adding the oil/melted butter pour it in as a steady stream as if you were making mayonnaise. It will need to be mixed a few times and oil from the sides will need scraping down and into the bowl.

Lastly mix in the chopped chocolate.

Check the batter in can differ so if it is too dry add some more butter/oil or too moist add some more flour etc.

Tip the mix into a lined 900g loaf tin or circular.

Check it at 50 minutes with a skewer, I left mine in for an hour and it was slightly overdone.

When cooked to perfection, take it out of the over and leave it to cool on a rack.

Serve with double cream and enjoy guilt-free as you deserve!

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Ilana Sowter is an Acupuncturist on the North Shore of Auckland. Expect the best acupuncture, holistic health consultation, tailored treatment and advice with 8 years experience for women’s health, lifestyle, acupuncture, dietetics and Chinese herbs.